Google Search is giving more results for a query when it's quoted

Question

Search results:

• 218m - "blog post"
• 204m - blog post

I expected it to be the other way around, at least.

Answer 1

This is a bug in Google Instant (Google would probably say it's a feature). Disabling Google Instant should fix it for you.

When I'm signed in to my account and I use Google Instant, I get incorrect results (i.e. more results for the quoted version of the query). If I disable Google Instant, or I use an incognito window in Chrome (using Google Instant, but not logged in), I get the correct results.

Google Instant is described as:

Use Google Instant — predictions and results appear while typing

Signed-in users can remove personalized predictions from their Web History.

What's weird is that I'm using a Google Apps account which has the entire Web History feature disabled, however, it is still obviously tracking personalized suggestions.

If I disable, then enable, Google Instant, it seems like the results are fixed. However, this is probably only temporary.

I have come across this problem in other situations as well such as when I search for the exact text that I know is on a website, but I simply don't get the result from my search. It's extremely frustrating since then you think it's a problem with your query and you can spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. Then you try it on another computer (or an incognito window in Chrome) and there's the result. I hope Google will eventually realize that their attempt at being "smart" is anything but that.

By the way, I have always had web history disabled (since I hate those kind of situations as described above), but have Google Instant enabled (since I like being to search fast). However, if I run into it a lot, I may just disable Google Instant permanently.

Answer 2

There must be something wrong with your search settings. When I search, I get normal results:

• "blog post": 223m
• blog post: 1030m